Arab World English Journal
AWEJ Volume.3 Number 2. June 2012 pp. 233 – 265
The Impacts of Language Awareness Grammar Teaching on Two Grammatical Items
Shu-Chiu Hung
Department of Applied English,
School of Education and Foreign Languages,
Ming Chuan University, Taiwan.
Xiangyang Zhang
Department of Foreign Language
Studies, Jiangsu Radio and Television University,
Nanjing, China.
Abstract
The paper is to report the impacts of teaching grammar for language awareness on two grammatical items, ‘Articles’ and ‘Prepositions’. Teaching treatments which were developed in the study to teach grammar for language awareness were given to fifty-eight Chinese participants who were studying English in the English as a Foreign Language (hereafter EFL) context in China. Pre-and-post grammar tests and questionnaires were administered as research instruments to collect relevant data in the study. Based on the collected data, the results of the study have shown that a). subjects performed better grammar gains of learning the grammatical item ‘Articles’ after receiving the teaching treatment whereas there is no statistically significant difference, b) subjects showed better grammar gains of learning the grammatical item ‘Prepositions’ after given the teaching treatment whereas there is no statistically significant difference, and c). a majority of subjects after receiving language awareness displayed more positive perceptions toward learning grammar, leading to possible transformative learning. To conclude, the present study has, to a greater extent, illuminated the applicability of teaching and learning grammar for language awareness in the Chinese EFL context. In other words, teaching grammar for language awareness could serve as a potential alternative approach of teaching grammar in the EFL context as a result of positive Chinese learner perceptions towards their learning of English grammar.
Keywords: teaching grammar for language awareness; teaching treatments; grammar learning gains; the Chinese EFL context; learner perceptions